Resolution mechanics with more complex results?

[Zadmar]

One side-effect of cards (which may or may not be a drawback) is that the probabilities change as you work your way through the deck - unless you shuffle after each draw, but that would really slow things down.

You could do something like RuneQuest, which uses a d100 to resolve the attack, and switches the d10s (so tens become units and vice versa) to determine the hit location. So for example if you rolled 37 to attack, you'd hit location 73.

However the solution I prefer is to roll a Chessex Hit Location d12 along with the other dice. There's no way you can accidently confuse the die for something else, and you don't need to look up the result in a hit location table. The drawback is that you need to buy a special die, but I enjoy collecting unusual dice anyway, so I don't mind.

 

[dbm]

The only numbers involved at all would be in the number of dice used, as well as a single d6 for determining which critical hit effect happens if you're critically hit. Each hit location has six "slots", so for example, the "left side" location of an Atlas AS7-D would contain something like 1. Arm Actuator; 2. Heatsink; 3 Heatsink; 4 LRM-20; 5 Medium Laser; 6 LRM ammunition. It has 20 points of armor and 15 points of internal structure.

I misunderstood what you were proposing; I thought you needed to hit a target number or certain number of successes as well as needing to generate a location.